


Stockholm

by 401



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Assasination, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Flashbacks, Hit, M/M, Past, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Feels, Sweden - Freeform, misson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 07:48:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5367092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/401/pseuds/401
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky remembers his first mark, and why it was so difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stockholm

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this I'm sorry

Bucky could remember his first hit. It was one of the few memories from Hydra that had remained vivid in his head, instead of blurring and warping unsettlingly like the rest, turning into patchworks of their former clarity and becoming marred with snapshots from other conflicting memories. The first hit stuck fast like a cattle brand, right behind his eyes and ready to appear every time he closed them.

The man, a Swedish hacker known only as Heathy had been collateral damage for a bigger problem The Asset had been struggling to solve. It had been a tangle of relationships and affairs that had taken him weeks of surveillance to untie. He had ended with the conclusion that to reach the final and most important mark, he would have to eliminate Heathy and anyone else affiliated with him. It was less than ideal, but manageable with a little bit of tact and efficiency.

_“You’re not going to scream,” The Asset had said quietly from his adopted perch on Heathy’s windowsill._

_The young hacker had frozen stiff with his back to the Asset before turning slowly to meet his dispatch. The Asset had stepped silently into the room from the windowsill an immediately pulled Heathy into a choke hold with his right hand, using the stronger metal on to slide the desk I the corner of the room in front of the door so they were not disturbed. This was not a job for a gun, despite how much more simple it would have been; there were too many surrounding blocks in the area to use anything loud. The hacker spluttered and wheezed against the grip of his hand until tears ran down his face and down the Asset’s forearm._

_“Ple…” Heathy’s pleas had fallen to bubbling silence._

_Bucky looked down at him. He was young, far too young to be concerned with all of this. He still had the face of a boy, even if he was in his twenties, with a thin face, soft blonde hair and big eyes that were now brimming with burning tears and grating into Bucky’s desperately._

_“Look down,” Bucky had ordered, feeling the damning guilt that he battled so hard to escape rising in his chest like water in a drowning tank._

_Heathy had kept staring, the colour in his cheeks shifting sickeningly fast from hot pink to grey to bluish-purple and the kicking of his legs slowing. Tears had run down the Asset’s cheeks, falling in fat droplets onto the hacker’s face._

_He knew that face. He knew it too well and not well enough._

_“I’m sorry,” Bucky had whispered, cradling the hacker into an awkward hug against his chest and lowering them onto the floor as he waited for the last signs of life to fall away._

_“It’ll stop hurting soon,” Bucky attempted to reassure, “I promise it will stop.”_

_Heathy’s limbs had fallen slack after what had seemed like an age. Bucky had tucked him back into bed and stumbled silently out of the apartment block before returning back to the Hydra base at Stockholm to be reconditioned and punished for his inefficiency._

_It would be years before Bucky would realise that the hacker had reminded him of Steve._

Steve stepped behind Bucky and loosened the soldier’s grip on the edge of the table. His jaw was tense and his eyes were welling up, trained on the wall in front of him like he was trying to burn through it.

“Buck,” Steve’s rubbed circles into Bucky’s palms, working to loosen them, “Back in the room.”

Steve could see the fog taking over, crawling through the brunet like a disease and taking over system after system on its way.

“Come on,” Steve sat down opposite Bucky at the small dining room table in their kitchen, “Remember where you are for me.”

 

Bucky nodded slowly, a shaky breath whistling out of his parted lips. Tears fell heavily down his cheeks and he rubbed them away angrily.

 

Bucky never told Steve about the hacker at Stockholm. He probably never would.


End file.
